1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capture apparatus, and more specifically to an image capture apparatus capable of capturing images in normal and self-portrait shooting modes.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, most digital cameras include an image-capture section and a display section. The image-capture section includes a camera lens for use in photo-taking a subject. The display section includes a monitor screen to display thereon an image captured by the image-capture section or an image reproduced from a recording medium.
Some digital cameras have the display section coupled to the image-capture section via a joint portion such that the display section is rotatable with respect to the image-capture section. These digital cameras allow for both normal shooting and self-portrait shooting. In normal shooting, the direction in which the camera lens faces is opposite to the direction in which the monitor screen faces. In self-portrait shooting in which the photographer can photograph himself, the direction of the camera lens faces in the same direction as the monitor screen.
In digital cameras allowing such self-portrait shooting, it is necessary, during self-portrait shooting, to horizontally reverse an image captured by the image-capture section and display the reversed image on the monitor screen in a mirror image fashion. Therefore, these digital cameras are equipped with an LCD (liquid crystal device) controller having a horizontally-reversing function (hereinafter referred to as a “mirror-image display function”).
In addition, most digital cameras are commonly equipped with a superimpose control circuit. The superimpose control circuit superimposes a character information pattern, such as date, time, manipulation information, warning information about operating conditions of the digital camera, etc., on an image displayed on the monitor screen of the digital camera.
If the superimposed character information pattern as described above is also displayed in a mirror image fashion when the mirror-image display function is performed in a digital camera allowing self-portrait shooting, horizontally-reversed characters will be output to the monitor screen. In order to overcome this problem, it has been proposed, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. Hei 7-154692 (corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,554), to further apply horizontally-reversing processing to the character information pattern so as to output a character information pattern that is normally recognizable on the monitor screen.
However, there is a problem associated with this proposal that reapplying of horizontally-reversing processing to the character information pattern during self-portrait shooting necessitates an additional circuit for performing such processing, thereby causing an increase in circuitry scale and an increase in cost.
In addition, part of operation members (buttons) disposed on a digital camera are provided on the assumption that they are operated by a photographer during normal shooting. Therefore, in the above-described conventional digital camera, if the photographer operates these operation members when the monitor section is in the self-portrait shooting posture, a problem may arise. For instance, an image erase button that the photographer should operate while viewing a captured image on the monitor screen is one of the above-described operation members.
Furthermore, most of indication members disposed on a digital camera are placed on the back side of the digital camera on the assumption that they are operated by a photographer during normal shooting. Therefore, in the above-described conventional digital camera, a problem arises in that the photographer cannot see these indication members when the display section is in the self-portrait shooting posture. For instance, an indication member, such as an LED, for indicating the focusing state of the digital camera is one of the above-described indication members.